Chanter sur le livre à la Renaissance: Les traités de contrepoint de Vicente Lusitano ed. by Philippe Canguilhem (review)

The practice of improvised polyphony during the Renaissance has long seemed out of reach to musicologists and performers. Vicente Lusitano, a Portuguese musician born around 1520, is most often recognized as a participant in a celebrated debate with Nicola Vicentino in 1551. Less widely known is that Lusitano is also the author of not one, but two of the most detailed music theory treatises on the practice of improvised polyphony. This volume aims to promote awareness of Lusitano’s treatises by making them more widely available and by presenting extensive research on his life and works.

The book opens with an essay by Philippe Canguilhem that situates Lusitano’s writings within the context of major developments in Renaissance contrapuntal theory. Particular attention is paid to Lusitano’s indebtedness to earlier Iberian writings, most notably Matheo de Aranda’s Tractado de canto mensurable y contrapunto (Lisbon, 1535). Canguilhem’s thorough introduction to Lusitano’s writings explains the important concepts of contrapunto suelto, contrapunto concertado, and abilidades. A fascinating discussion of the relationship between counterpoint and composition (pp. 21–23) introduces notions of orality and literacy to the scholarship on the historical meaning of these terms. For Canguilhem, the significance of Lusitano’s writings is that they show how central improvised counterpoint was to everyday musical life during the Renaissance. The chapter includes a comprehensive bibliography of primary sources concerning the practice of chanter sur le livre up to the year 1800.

An essay by Giordano Mastrocola marks a new height in biographical research on Lusitano. The wide-ranging chapter examines key elements of Lusitano’s personal identity: Portuguese nationality, racial and ethnic difference (his father was probably an African slave), cosmopolitanism in Rome, and, toward the end of his life, heterodoxy across Europe. Mastrocola rightly laments the knee-jerk scholarly association of Lusitano with Vicentino. In addition to an extended discussion of their debate (pp. 58–78)—the clearest yet in the secondary literature—the chapter presents intriguing findings that will enable future scholarship to transcend the limiting view of Lusitano merely as Vicentino’s nemesis. Among these promising areas of research are his social and geographical mobility, conversion to Protestantism, and later transalpine career (possibly under a different name). Mastrocola’s contextualization of Lusitano within overlapping aristocratic networks in Portugal, Italy, and Germany is very useful in this regard.

The remainder of the volume consists of critical editions and French translations of excerpts from two treatises by Lusitano. The first, Del arte de contrapunto (ca. 1550), is from a larger manuscript treatise preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, shelf mark Espagnol 219. Although the Spanish-language manuscript is anonymous, the editors follow Robert M. Stevenson in attributing its authorship to Lusitano, and take a further step in asserting its status as an autograph (pp. 119–20). A short linguistic analysis by Marie-Françoise Déodat-Kessedjian establishes the influence of Portuguese and Latin on the Spanish orthography in the manuscript; this contributes additional security to the manuscript’s attribution to Lusitano. Clearly, the manuscript was a work in progress. The editors preserve the flavor of its development by indicating additions, cancellations, and marginalia where they occur.

Lusitano’s Del arte de contrapunto is a systematic discussion of ways to improvise counterpoint against a given voice. The first chapter proceeds logically in the manner of species counterpoint, considering in turn one, two, four, and three notes against one note of a cantus firmus. Lusitano then considers the treatment of dissonance and rhythmically-varied counterpoint. He consistently gives rules for improvising both above and below the given voice; many contemporary sources omit the more difficult latter technique. Another unusual aspect is that he provides written instruction in an oral practice. Although this was common in music theory books, Lusitano is notably frank in admitting...